Recently, with improvements in communication infrastructures and advances in information communication techniques, online information providing services using services which use the Internet and the like can be provided. Some of these information providing services are provided by using apparatuses which receive and manage orders for data processing such as print processing. Such an apparatus must hold order information about an order in the time interval between the instant at which a user gives the order for data processing and the instant at which the order is carried out.
A conventional apparatus managed the order information and the personal information of the user altogether while associating them with each other. For this reason, if the personal information is changed or deleted, the order information is often influenced. Therefore, the execution of such a change must be suspended until the order is carried out.
For example, in a conventional photo-site which provides services such as storage, editing, printing, and browsing of image data through the Internet, the image data of a user as personal information is part of order information. If the image data is deleted, since the target for which ordered processing is to be performed disappears, the image data cannot be deleted until data processing such as printout processing is completed. In many cases, an upper limit is set for a storage area in the photo-site which is given to one user. If, therefore, ordered image data cannot be deleted until it is printed out, new image data may not be stored in the system.
In a conventional information providing apparatus which demands user registration, if a registration is canceled, order information is deleted together with personal information. This, however, makes it impossible to carry out the order. Therefore, the registration cannot be canceled until the order is carried out.
As described above, in conventional apparatuses, limitations are imposed on editing and the like of personal information, resulting in an inability to speedily handle requests from users.